Taiji

I am colorblind, there is a red puzzle early on which asks me to differentiate between two shades of (presumably) red. I cannot. This is an easy problem to solve. I don't understand why its still here in games in 2022 (ok, its not 2022 anymore but still). The solution comes in many many flavors, you could put a filter over the entire screen that shifts the colors to different ones, you can use symbols (ok probably not for this puzzle), you can just not use color at all. You have so many options, ones that the dev even wrote about in a blog. Where are they. That rat bastard john blow did the same thing, and that made that game suck more too (he is also a reprehensible human being), why you gotta follow in his footsteps?

This is kind of a difficult game to review. It's very similar to a certain other higher profile game that you will see named dropped in all the other reviews. It is not as good or expansive as that game. So, to somebody who's played this can I recommend this imitation? Well, it's been a few years now since the Witness came out. Maybe it would be fun to do something similar, without re-solving something so enormous. As a stand alone product without any knowledge of the Witness, I would say this is pretty cool, but on the other hand I do have knowledge of the Witness and I would definitely not recommend playing this game first if you haven't played that one because it does include a few of the exact same ideas and it would spoil the game a bit. But yeah, as someone who quite liked the Witness when it came out (the nothingburger of the plot and ending not withstanding) It's kind of fun to have a somewhat different version of it that's playable on my laptop. My criticism is the walking around. i think with this 2-D sort of game it would be better to just zoom out to a map and zoom in on a puzzle. The store page makes a big deal about there being no pixel-hunting in this game for some reason. Well going back and looking for a puzzle you skipped isn't exactly totally dissimilar from pixel hunting.

Very focused, and yes, very much like The Witness. You are learning and then applying a grammar of shapes and rules. It rewards wandering and exploring, and doesn't hold your hand.

I unfortunately bounced off this one. It wasn't one thing really, but I didn't find the learning portion of puzzle solving to be very concrete. Ambiguous lessons drew incorrect conclusions and that can compound into something really frustrating. Especially when it can be unclear if I've stumbled into the "beginning" of an area. I don't know, I solved a couple areas and I simply wasn't excited to learn a new ruleset. If the puzzles do click for you, I suspect there is some great content in here. It's got a nice visual style and some mystery to the world. Maybe I'll give it another shot in the future.

I got this as part of the puzzle Humble Bundle, and honestly this game by itself makes that bundle worth it. It's a bit reminiscent of the witness, except much better designed and in 2D. It's generally quite clear when a puzzle you encounter requires kowledge gained from a different area of the map, and these more advanced puzzles are almost never the first one you encounter when entering an area (the only exception I've found to this is the lone tree on the lake in the west of the map, which didn't strike me as particularly complicated on first approach and which is basically incomprehensible without visiting the orchard area, an area that is particularly poorly connected so you are unlikely to stumble upon. This is made worse by the lake tree being extremely present on the map, giving the impression that it is an area in its own right). It achieves this by approaching the layout more like a metroidvania than an open world - puzzles that require knowledge from different zones are placed and sometimes locked behind puzzles that don't, regardless from which direction you enter an area - shortcuts between more advanced corners of each area are generally only unlocked after completing puzzles in both areas. The slight downside to this is that the map can be frustrating to navigate sometimes, since adjacent areas might not be connected at all or require you to essentially zigzag up/down stairs or around fences and the like. [spoiler]This is mitigated somewhat by the fast travel system, though, which I only realized wasn't just a map on the third day of playing lol[/spoiler]. The introductory puzzles of each area do a great job of explaining the mechanics without directly telling you them - they typically start off with a puzzle which is so small that random guessing can give you the right solution, while visually giving you some idea about what the mechanic is about. They then continue giving puzzles that progressively rely on a more specific understanding of the rules, allowing you to start with a vague idea of how the mechanic sort of works and end up with knowing the exact rules. [spoiler]for example the number mechanic starts you off with just dots that have to be seperated - you might interpret these as being specific tetris shapes you have to make, or as tiles that need to be seperate in general, etc. it then presents you with puzzles where it is impossible to seperate them all to teach you that they can be connected, etc.[/spoiler] Basically each time it presents you with a puzzle where a misinterpretation of the rules leads to a contradiction, whilst being a relatively simple puzzle to make it not too difficult to figure out what the correct interpretation is. The mechanics are different enough to warrant different methods of solving them, with some mechanics simply being about perception, some being more geared towards geometric intuition, and some being solveable in a similar fashion as minesweeper. In general the larger puzzles can be approached systematically, although some intuition and insight will help expedite the process. The marker tool helps with this, although having more colours available would be nice, especially on the walking puzzles (since I want to be able to mark "must be on" and "must be off" while being able to try things on the board. Normally I use the marker to mean "I know this tile must be what I set it to" and then just turn the tile on/off, allowing me to play around with the remaining tiles. Walking puzzles make this impossible since I can't toggle arbitrary tiles, so I only end up being able to mark either what tiles I know need to be on or which tiles I know need to be off, not both). I was also inclined to pull out pen and paper for the puzzles in the black area, though with those it ended up being the case that [spoiler]at least one of the partial puzzles was very restrictive, so marking another partial puzzle on top of the last one was sufficient. [/spoiler] Oh lastly the more hidden puzzles were kinda fun, but it would be nice to have some sort of indication of when a hidden section is done, both so you don't waste time looking and also for a bit of that victorious feeling.

A good blend of puzzles that made me feel very smart and very stupid. I did find a few went beyond the limits of an enjoyable challenge—too many pieces, too quick to add rules and complexity, too busy or subtle to visually parse—but the majority of what here is clever and rewarding. Big ups to the nerds who not only put in the work to solve these puzzles on their own, but then went on to write guides and hints for the rest of us who couldn't be bothered.

The Witness is a better value on sale, but if you've had your fun with that, this is a high-quality après while you wait for Order of the Sinking Star. Great music.